Our stroll down the main drag of Carberry in our hunt for heritage goodness arrives at the Waters Block.

This unpretentious workaday building came into view on Carberry’s streetscape in 1901. The Waters Block is a two-storey commercial property that has housed more than two dozen businesses over the decades. Its rectangular form, enclosed in brick walls and with a flat roof, is wide and deep, substantial and practical.

The simple facade has corner pilasters that frame the face. The lower level divides into two separate storefronts, each with large welcoming display windows and its own indented entrance. Between them is the second floor entrance. Three symmetrical windows open from the second floor. I couldn’t locate any earlier pictures of this building so one is left to wonder what brick delights are hidden beneath the metal cladding on the second floor.

On this side view you can see the original two bay design of the side walls with small windows which are repeated on both sides. The visible wall, on the south side, has been altered so as to obscure the pilasters. You can see the building steps down into a one-storey at the rear. The place’s simple and humble design features are appropriate and make their own quiet contributions to the designated heritage district.

It was built by James Wellington McCrae to house his implement dealership which he’d opened in Carberry in 1882. A native of Ontario, McCrae had homesteaded nearby before changing occupations. He served on Carberry Town Council and was reeve of the R. M. of North Cypress. Though the place no longer bears his name, it stands as one of James McCrae’s more durable contributions to the growth of Carberry.

In its century plus of housing local business, the interior of the Waters Block has been frequently modified to accommodate numerous uses. Among its residents have been car dealers, hardware merchants, clubs, residential tenants, farm implement dealers and numerous shops and services.

In 1961, a chap named McRorie opened a Macleod’s Hardware Store in the building, which it remained for several decades. In 1963 William Waters bought the hardware business and ran it for 17 years, thus the building acquired it current moniker.

Pa Tuckett does not have fond memories of the block, he tells me as a tear rolls away from his right eye. He remembers back to 1918 and the Spanish flu epidemic. People were warned to stay indoors and avoid contact with others. The first flu wave in late summer hadn’t been as dangerous as expected in the Carberry area. Sure, people died but not like was predicted. The second wave in the fall posed even less danger. Pa celebrates again the end of World War I on November 11, 1918. “Armistice Day! Everybody was real happy the war was over and won. People just wanted to celebrate despite the warnings to stay at home. The town had a big party and most everyone showed up, thinking the worst of the epidemic had passed. Well, most of it had passed,” says Pa. “But for one couple who’d come from away. They infected half the folk at that party including my beautiful Amelia. She died three days later.” At the time, Bloomingfield’s Mortuary was located in the Waters Block. Pa’s last mental picture of Amelia is of her laying in her coffin, her ashen face against a shiny blue pillow. “We hadn’t even been married one year.” Another tear.

Hi Paul, Thanks for your comment. So you live in the Sear Building 19-21 Main or the Murphy Block at 29 Main? Carberry is my kind of town as it turns out. I built them a website for the heritage festival. Check it out http://www.carberryheritagefestival.com Reid

Criddle/Vane House Guided Tour 3:55

Click pic to take my 3:55 tour of the 14-room house which was destroyed by arson in 2014.

Stone Alone out on Highway 21 2:16

To explore this house inside and out click pic

Portals to the Past 4:18

Beside the road, the haunted souls of the long gone find solace and sanctuary in tumbledowns, neglected and abandoned places that once danced with the rhythms of lives but now succumb and succumb. Click pic for 4:17 video

Mission Statement

As a professional writer, I shall honour the strategy that informs my client’s audience in a voice they trust and a style they understand.
As a personal writer, I shall honour the strategies defined by the resourcefulness of my mind, the waves of my heart and the wiles of my spirit.

Just This by Ken Wilber

In the heart of Emptiness there is a mysterious impulse, mysterious because there is actually nothing in the heart of Emptiness (for there is nothing in Emptiness, period). Yet there it is, this mysterious impulse, the impulse to…create. To sing, to shine, to radiate; to send forth, reach out and celebrate; to sing and shout and walk about; to effervesce and bubble over, this mysterious exuberance in the heart of Emptiness.

Emptiness empties itself of emptiness, and thus becomes Full, pregnant with all worlds, a fruition of the infinite impulse to play, hidden in the heart of your own deepest Self. If you rest in the Witness, settle back as I-I, and look very carefully for the Looker – if you turn within right now and try to see the Seer – you won’t see anything at all, for you cannot see the Seer. All you will find is a vast Freedom and Emptiness, in which the entire Kosmos is now arising. Out of the pure Emptiness that is your deepest suchness, all worlds arise. Your own impulse of looking has brought forth the universe, and here it resides in the vastness of all space which is to say, in the purity of your own primordial awareness. This has been obvious all along; this you have known all along. Just this, and nothing more, just this.

from "One Taste"

My Mission Statement

As a professional writer, I shall honour the strategy that informs my client’s audience in a voice they trust and a style they understand.
As a personal writer, I shall honour the strategies defined by the resourcefulness of my mind, the waves of my heart and the wiles of my spirit.